But for once Philip's comforting admiration failed her. "I don't know how you look," he muttered, and turned abruptly away. She stared after him in surprise. "Dear Phil--he must be very much upset to speak to me like that!" she thought. She went into the parlor, and busied herself arranging flowers she had ordered to make the place less cheerless for the little wedding. The proprietress came in presently with more flowers, a box bearing the card of James Thorpe. The woman was in a flutter of excitement. "They's two reporters in the office already, _Mrs. Kildare_," she said, emphasizing the name, "and more on the way, I reckon. If I'd 'a guessed who you were, I'd 'a' had a weddin'-cake baked, I surely would. I've been on your side from the very first!" "Thank you," said Kate, wearily. "We've often had folks stayin' here to meet a friend who was comin' out,"--she jerked a significant thumb over her shoulder toward the penitentiary--"but never any one so famous, and never a weddin' right at the very gate, so to speak," she added unctuously. Kate winced. She had registered under a false name, hoping thus to escape notoriety. Now she saw the folly of any such hope. From the first, no detail of her unfortunate romance had escaped notoriety. "Let the reporters come up," she sighed. "Perhaps if I speak to them now they will let us alone afterwards." She was speaking to them, when she heard in the street outside the familiar, crisp trot of the colts from Storm. Her voice broke off in the middle of a sentence, and the two reporters, exchanging glances, tactfully withdrew. Kate was suddenly very weak in the knees. She stood by the window for a moment, clinging to the curtains, with closed eyes. "I must be prepared for changes," she said to herself. "It is many years, many years--" She opened her eyes and looked down. Philip had alighted, throwing the lines to a porter. As he crossed the sidewalk, he glanced up at her window and she saw his face. No one followed him. She met him at the head of the stairs. "Where is he, Philip?" Her voice was very quiet. "Gone." He led her into the room, closing the door in the faces of the eager reporters. "Father caught a train that went through Frankfort just after dawn," he said tonelessly. She cried out. "Just after dawn!" It was the hour of her vision. "He did not get our letters, then? He did not know that we were coming to take him home? There was some mistake!" "There was no mistake. From the first he did not mean to see us. The warden said so." "Where has he gone?" "I do not know. The warden would not tell me." Kate ran into her room, and returned with a hat and coat. "He will tell me," she said. "Come." The warden received them in his private office, grave with sympathy.